As Bitcoin (BTC) marked a new all-time high above $67,000, PayPal co-founder and billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel said he should have bought more Bitcoin. Thiel spoke of cryptocurrencies, central banks and artificial intelligence during an interview in Miami hosted by policy think tank Lincoln Network, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday. “You’re supposed to just buy Bitcoin,” Thiel said, adding, “I feel like I’ve been underinvested in it.” The tech investor noted that his only concern about buying Bitcoin was that the investment “secret was already known by everybody.” “I think the answers are still to go long. Maybe it still …

After hitting a new all-time high price approaching $67,000 earlier on Wednesday, the market capitalization of Bitcoin briefly surpassed the total market cap of the Swiss franc. According to data from Fiatmarketcap, Bitcoin’s market cap was more than $1.263 trillion when the price of the crypto asset reached an all-time high of roughly $67,000 earlier on Wednesday. This briefly exceeded the value of the circulating supply of the Swiss franc at 1,158,489,000,000 CHF, or roughly $1.26 trillion. AssetDash also lists the total Bitcoin (BTC) market cap within $500 billion of Amazon. The price rise that led to Bitcoin flippening the …

As Russia continues pushing de-dollarization, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA Russia) is reportedly considering replacing the United States dollar with not only traditional fiat currencies but also digital currencies. Aleksandr Pankin, deputy minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia, reiterated the country’s plans to reduce the U.S. dollar share in Russia’s international reserves and its usage in settlement with foreign partners in a Tuesday interview with local news agency Interfax. The official said that MFA Russia isn’t excluding the possibility of replacing the U.S. dollar with “some digital assets” alongside other currencies: “It’s possible to replace the U.S. dollar with …

Amid the United States President Joe Biden signing legislation to raise the government’s debt limit to $28.9 trillion, Senator Cynthia Lummis said that Bitcoin (BTC) is a blessing of God. Senator Lummis gave a speech to the Senate on Thursday, providing her perspective on how digital currencies like Bitcoin could potentially help countries like the U.S. address the looming crisis when the state runs out of cash. Lummis said that one of the reasons she had become so interested in non-fiat digital currencies like Bitcoin is because they are not issued by the government and thus aren’t beholden to the …

The central bank of Russia is trying to evaluate the amount of Bitcoin (BTC) held by local investors amid a massive amount of money not returning to banks following the pandemic-fueled withdrawals. According to Elizaveta Danilova, head of the central bank’s financial stability department, the Bank of Russia is polling local cryptocurrency investors to estimate cryptocurrency investment volumes in Russia. “We need to work both on data and raising public awareness about the risks of such investments, which are backed by nothing,” Danilova said in a Reuters interview published on the Bank of Russia’s official website on Thursday. The official …

President of Mexico Andrés Manuel López Obrador said the country was unlikely to follow in El Salvador’s footsteps by adopting cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin as legal tender alongside fiat. In a Thursday press conference, Obrador, also known as AMLO, said Mexico “must maintain orthodoxy” in its financial management and would not be changing its position on crypto. The Bank of Mexico and the National Banking and Securities Commission issued a statement in June warning that financial institutions were “not authorized to carry out and offer to the public operations with virtual assets,” but the president has not often spoken directly on …

Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies have a permanent role in financial markets, but other digital assets such as central bank digital currencies (CBDC) or nonfungible tokens (NFT) could likely outperform crypto, according to Standard Chartered CEO Bill Winters. Speaking on a Standard Chartered conference call, Winters echoed the “crypto is here to stay” narrative and said there’s a role for non-fiat currencies, given the concerns about inflation. “Broadly, we’ve gone through a long period of low inflation, and we’ve got central banks experimenting in uncharted territory with very, very loose monetary policy,” Winters said, adding: “It’s perfectly reasonable for people …

MoonPay, a fintech startup dedicated to building crypto payments infrastructure, is reportedly expected to reach a valuation of $3.4 billion after conducting its first round of venture capital funding. The VC funding for the crypto payments startup is being co-led by Tiger Global Management and Coatue Management and will inject funds worth $400 million into the bootstrapped company. The MoonPay platform allows the purchase and sale of cryptocurrencies and digital assets using mainstream payment methods such as debit and credit card and local bank transfers. While the funding information is not officially announced, a report from The Information suggests that …

Financial services company MoneyGram International has partnered with the Stellar Development Foundation to enable consumers to send money using Circle’s popular stablecoin, USD Coin (USDC), and convert directly to and from fiat. Per a Wednesday announcement, MoneyGram has integrated support allowing crypto wallets connected to the Stellar Network to access its global retail platform. Working alongside Circle, MoneyGram will also enable “near-instant backend settlement,” account funding and local fiat withdrawals using the USDC stable token. United Texas Bank will act as the settlement bank to complete the process within the regulatory framework. “As crypto and digital currencies rise in prominence, …

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) published an issue paper providing its perspective on central bank digital currencies (CBDC). The paper outlines CBDC purposes, designs, as well as the potential benefits and associated risks. The bank will be seeking comments on the proposed paper until Dec. 6. The document focuses on a “general-purpose” CBDC that is a digital currency issued to “any individual or business that wants to use it.” “Such a ‘general-purpose’ CBDC would be closer in function to cash and better placed to fulfil the role of central bank money than a ‘wholesale’ CBDC,” RBNZ wrote. The …

The National Bank of Ukraine, the country’s chief monetary authority, has recently taken to professional social network LinkedIn to promote its blockchain developer job opening. The ad was published by the director of NBU’s IT department, Vladimir Nagornyuk. The ad goes on to list “development, implementation and modification of infrastructure services […] and distributed systems” among the prospective employee’s duties, in addition to mentioning smart contracts and Hyperledger competencies among the requirements for the job. The central bank’s interest in blockchain hires adds to other recent news coming out of Ukraine’s CBDC project, the e-hryvnia. Last week, speaking at a …

As financial authorities around the globe become increasingly concerned about stablecoin regulation, a jurisdiction in China is preparing to pilot a new yuan-pegged stablecoin for international trade. Chris Banbury, head of global operations at permissionless blockchain project Conflux, told Cointelegraph on Sept. 21 that the firm will provide its technology to launch an offshore renminbi (RMB) stablecoin pegged to China’s central bank digital currency (CBDC), the digital yuan. “This is going to be pegged to the digital yuan in price only with no formal integration,” Banbury noted, adding that the project will be exploring how the token trades against other …